The present invention describes social networking techniques, devices, systems and software which can be used in conjunction with social networks associated with a television, e.g., a family social networking tool.
Technologies associated with the communication of information have evolved rapidly over the last several decades. Television, cellular telephony, the Internet and optical communication techniques (to name just a few modes of communications) combine to inundate consumers with available information and entertainment options. Taking television as an example, the last three decades have seen the introduction of cable television service, satellite television service, pay-per-view movies and video-on-demand, both of the latter being made available by cable, fiber-optic, and satellite service providers, as well as over the internet (e.g., Netflix®). Whereas television viewers of the 1960s could typically receive perhaps four or five over-the-air TV channels on their television sets, today's TV watchers have the opportunity to select from hundreds, thousands, and potentially millions of channels of shows and information. Video-on-demand technology, currently used primarily in hotels and the like, provides the potential for in-home entertainment selection from among thousands of movie titles.
Today, social sites like Facebook and LinkedIn allow users to form communities of friends and colleagues. Using these applications, users can naturally form communities of the people relevant to them—these communities are thus centered around the user. While they are very useful in achieving their purpose of enabling individuals to create individualized communities which may then be selectively linked together to create a global network of individualized communities, these social networks present their own challenges, e.g., related to privacy, and not everyone is comfortable with being part of a global community despite their advantages.
An alternative social networking idea is proposed herein—a community built around the TV or, more specifically, the community space the TV is in itself. That community could then, of course, expand from there (just like Facebook and LinkedIn can from their center of a person), or alternatively could be a substantially closed, mini-community that provides an enhanced social networking tool that is centered around a close knit group of people, e.g., a family or work group. Since the TV is a group device, this imbues it with a natural social component and an immediate community, namely the group of people who physically share that space (whether it's a household, work, or commercial location).
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide social networking techniques, devices, systems and software (applications) which facilitate the usage of the TV as a social networking tool centered about a group of people.